Rail crash victim was 'wonderful person'

Libor Jany

Updated 12:13 pm, Monday, January 7, 2013

Transit workers and Redding Police occupy the scene where a car was hit by a train near the intersection of Simpaug Turnpike and Long Ridge Road in West Redding Center, Conn., Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. The West Redding Train Station stands in the background.

Photo: Michael Duffy

Transit workers and Redding Police occupy the scene where a car was...

Scene where a car was hit by a train near the intersection of Simpaug Turnpike and Long Ridge Road in West Redding Center, Conn., Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.

Photo: Michael Duffy

Scene where a car was hit by a train near the intersection of...

First responders attend the scene where a car was hit by a train near the intersection of Simpaug Turnpike and Long Ridge Road in West Redding Center, Conn., Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.

Photo: Michael Duffy

First responders attend the scene where a car was hit by a train...

This is the train which hit a car carrying four people near the intersection of Simpaug Turnpike and Long Ridge Road in West Redding Center, Conn., Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.

REDDING -- Wayne Balacky, the 21-year-old Danbury man who was killed when the car he was riding in was crushed by a train Sunday, was remembered by family and friends as caring son who had many friends.

Balacky was a passenger in a gray Subaru Outback heading toward Danbury on Long Ridge Road when a train, traveling south, rammed into the car at an ungated railroad crossing near the West Redding station, Metro-North police said.

On Wednesday, Denise Balacky recalled her son as an ardent nature lover who enjoyed fishing and camping. He grew up on Scuppo Road in Danbury and graduated from Danbury High School.

"He admired his family and had many friends," Denise Balacky said by telephone. "He was just a bright, wonderful person."

Balacky's girlfriend, 19-year-old Jausheema Perkins, was at the wheel when the crash occurred, according to police. She had to be removed from the tangled wreckage and was taken to the same hospital as Balacky. She was later moved to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she died of her injuries.

The condition of the other two passengers, Fakeem Morning, 19 and James Redmond, 21, was not available Wednesday afternoon. Both were listed in critical condition on Tuesday.

"They're all good kids," Perkins' father, James, said.

The accident was the third such collision at the Long Ridge Road crossing in three decades, according to Federal Railroad Administration records. The most recent took place in July 2010.

Toxicology results, which might shed some light on whether drugs or alcohol were involved in the crash, won't be available for several weeks.

The crossing lights started flashing when the oncoming train was 20 seconds away, according to railroad spokesman Marjorie Anders. The train blew its horn as it approached the crossing, but the engineer did not see the car in time, Anders said.